MAT (Metadata Anonymisation Toolkit) is a dedicated metadata cleaner written in Python. In this tutorial, let me introduce a nice standalone metadata cleaner tool which is developed for a single goal: anonymize all metadata for your privacy. You can use existing document or image editor software which typically have built-in metadata editing capability. Not to be paranoid, but metadata gathering tools such as metagoofil are often exploited during information gathering stage as part of penetration testing.įor those of you who want to strip any personalizing metadata from any shared data, there are ways to remove metadata from data files.

Metadata in documents and spreadsheets contain author/affiliation information and other editing history. For example, EXIF metadata in photo images can reveal personally identifiable information such as your camera model, GPS coordinate of shooting, your favorite photo editor software, etc. While metadata has its own merits for data management purposes, it can actually affect your privacy adversely. EXIF (images), RDF (web resources), DOI (digital documents) are some of popular metadata standards. Common metadata include creator's name, tools used to generate the file, file creation/update date, location of creation, editing history, etc. How to remove file metadata for your privacy on LinuxĪ typical data file often has associated metadata which is descriptive information about the file, represented in the form of a set of name-value pairs.

Exiftool remove exif data